In Washington these days the radical politician du jour who openly advocates tearing down one constitutionally guaranteed freedom or another quite easily captures the adulation of secular media. But recently, when U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr advocated for a return to moral principles that undergird our country’s founding, news commentators were quick to label him a radical.

Barr presented a speech on religious freedom Oct. 9 at the University of Notre Dame Law School that was refreshingly candid in laying out the spiritual amnesia that affects the U.S. and the attempts to replace timeless concepts such as virtue, morality and natural law with the economic power, sexuality and license that enslaves rather than frees. And, Barr stated, religion plays a big part in societal harmony. Yes, religion and the religious freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.

Barr told the Notre Dame gathering that it’s not too late for “a moral renaissance.” Among other things, he called on Catholics in education to confront the opposition in the battle for our children’s minds and promote the objective good of Catholic education, which points to the Truth. He called on those in jurisprudence to fight for religious freedom whenever it is imperiled in order to preserve the country’s collective conscience.

And he stressed the importance of the family, which is consistently being broken down and warped: “We cannot have a moral renaissance unless we succeed in passing to the next generation our faith and values in full vigor,” he said.

I have experienced firsthand the vital importance of protecting our religious freedom. Threats of heavy financial penalties didn’t deter EWTN, the Little Sisters of the Poor and others from seeing that religious freedom was protected when the government threatened our ability to put our faith into practice by imposing the Department of Health and Human Services’ unjust contraception-abortion mandate.

The U.S. attorney general thinks the place of religion in our lives and in our society is worth protecting and worth fighting for. Knowing that should give us some solace and inspire us to greater perseverance in our faith and to fight for the freedom to live it out publicly.

God bless you!